As the Bv234 was almost as wide as it was long and had the stability of a barge the implications of a ditching were that it would be almost impossible to overturn, thus it did not even need loatation gear. The Puma especially is notoriously unstable on the water and the failure of one float - a frequent, even common event, would very likely result in a capsize of most other, if not all other N Sea types. What on earth do you mean - I don't understand.
If you are referring to the lack of emergency exits in the cabin I have already addressed that matter. An option was available had Mr Bristow wished to take it up. "Negotiations broke down---shortfalls in performance" Er, what shortfalls in performance? I don't recall any. Surely not Bristows asking too much and then demanding guarantees? That just sounds to me like Bristow Bluster. I can understand that Bristow who knew first-hand how fickle helos can be was reluctant to put that many people into one machine lest there was a disaster, a suggestion published elsewhere. He was astute enough to see that so many bodied would make unacceptable
PR, but that is a value judgement. My bet is he knew the 234 to have a limited market routes wise and that 2 companies chasing very few contracts would result in a profitless pissing contest and airframes being underused. The capital outlay and lack of obvious resale markets probably made this an opportunity to walk past, but being Bristow he couldn't and wouldn't say that so he came out with some bluster to cover it. As it turned out the 4 machines did pretty much fill the niche, and very profitably too. But I bet there wasn't room for 5 more. And from then on he missed no opportunity to snipe and slag it off because he couldn't compete in any other way.
It is indeed curious how contrary people can be on this forum against the presented evidence. It is confidently assumed that the CAA dishonstly colluded with industry to certificate an aircraft that is implied, with no shred of evidence to support the claim - that they somehow "knew" to be unsuitable/unsafe. (I'm curious, how
could anyone know that, and if they did, how come it wasn't/isn't public/industry knowledge?) The dishonesty of the CAA is taken as read yet the suggestion that an AAIB report might not be completely accurate (when it is repeating a line given it by the "dishonest" CAA) is scoffed at. Why is one unquestionably honest and the other unquestionably not? Implications that an aircraft was thought fundamentally unsafe are made repeatedly with no shred of evidence to support it, despite other operational types having horrendous problems and no complaints of CAA collusion or unsuitability there. SASless apparently thinks that 3000 hrs accrued in short bursts of 200hrs per month over 25 years somehow says more about a machine's durability than three times that accrued in six, and confuses the corporate knowledge of 500 low hours airframes with the specific experience of three times the hours at high intensity which is the subject we are actually discussing. The inconvenient fact that Boeing themselves were the engineering authority throughout all of this is conveniently forgotten. Or perhaps they know nothing compared to the US Army too...
SASless, in reality most of the world would name a quite different English-speaking nation from the description you gave...And that's a fact.
So there you have it. A sound, safe transport helicopter that for some reason even helicopter experts love to rubbish without good reason or evidence while ignoring far more serious shortfalls on its competitors. Poor Chinook, it deserves better.